When the place beneath you gets hard, the smooth ground breaks into rugged, and the incline burns. When all the fortitude turns flimsy, the grasping doesn't hold, and there's nothing left but to stop, hang on, and cry.

When the minutes, and then the hours slip away, with not one thing accomplished through the blurry vision; salty rivers sabotaging the day. And you feel like you must get a grip, for Pete's sake, look at this day wasting away, and those plans sitting still. Because tears just run, and are gone, a soaked disappearing, a whole lot of something becoming absolutely nothing.

Then he looks at you across the room, in that gentle way he does, and he says this: Maybe the tears are the most important thing you could have done today. Maybe, today, they are your best work; deep work, hard and beautiful work, watermarked on a plan we cannot see.

Loves? Honor where you are today. And know that, perhaps, the greatest accomplishment is not when you finish crying, but when you begin.